When marketing your services through social media, Pinterest is the perfect place to find inspiration and motivation for visually interesting content.You probably have an account on Facebook, check Instagram daily and and still dabble on Twitter, so you might be wondering if you really need a Pinterest account. Read on to find out how a Pinterest account can prove to be an important asset for your business.

Why Join Pinterest?

Every social network has a niche audience. For example, Twitter generally attracts people looking for news and insights about their favorite brands, LinkedIn is for individuals looking for jobs or contacting potential employees, and Instagram caters to younger people looking to socialize with others. Pinterest is different, as more than 80% of the users are women between the ages 25 to 55. It appears most of the them shop for their families, and Pinterest provides the perfect place for that. Amongst an endless stream of pins, you can search for all kinds of products, and buying products is super easy. The search also lets you differentiate between buyable pins and promotional pins.

Pinterest also boasts a high referral rate to your blog or website, second only to Facebook. And this number is a lot greater than what one can achieve through other social networks such as Linkedin or Twitter. Pinterest is a golden opportunity for businesses that your business must not miss out on. Let’s discuss how to make Pinterest work for you.

Use Keywords

Proper Keyword usage are an essential rule for your boards and pins to get noticed. Use keywords most relevant to your business, and use keywords that promise greater traffic. For example, using the term “tavern” might not get as many searches as the term “bar” or “pub”. You can and should optimize your keywords using tools such as Google Adwords, or moz.

Keywords should be present in both the board title and the pins you post. Here’s an important tip. Pinterest also takes into account the name of the file that is being uploaded, so instead of naming the file “untitled”, you should rename it to something relevant to your business, say “bar menu”.

Remember, moderation is key. Keyword stuffing is an unprofessional move. Your keywords should feel at home in the text content of the pins and the board, as shown below. Your keyword should appear once in the title, description and individual pins. Anymore than that overdoes it!

Use PosterMyWall to Optimize images

To maximize followers on your Pinterest account, add new pins daily. I’m for at least 40 new pins every week, and even if you’re new to Pinterest, your pins will start appearing on others’ search results. To get better engagement on your pins, you need to optimize your images for pinterest. The most effective way is to use the official Pinterest Graphic size, which is 735 px x 1102 px. In PosterMyWall, you can easily create images at this size, as well as other social media sizes. Use high quality images relevant to your category, and consistently add new pins to your Pinterest profile. Instead of adding 30 pins in a single day then taking the week off, add 5-10 pins daily. If you’re low on content or ideas, you can also re-pin older content buried away. This works especially well for holiday specific content(e.g. re-pin last year’s Black Friday inventory or Christmas apparel).

Copy of Christmas Sale Poster Template.jpg

Getting Your Pins Noticed

Pinterest recently introduced Smart Feed, which aims to provide relevant and high quality content to users. Here’s Social media examiner’s take on Smart Feed. How Smart Feed exactly works, we’re not sure of, but here are some of the factors that you should keep in mind, and use to your advantage:

For specific topics, Pinterest will trust some domains more than others, based on engagement on their previous content. So if you have 1 or 2 popular pins, you may want to boost it, allowing your future pins to get greater attention.
The more relevant your pin is to the search, the higher up it will be found in the result feed. As discussed previously, to improve relevance of your pins, use keywords most relevant to your content, in the board title, pin title and even in the name of the image uploaded as a pin.
Lastly, the pin itself. A more recent pin will be higher up in the result feed, and an older pin, no matter how many repins it got will eventually be buried away. That's why you need to 1.) post daily and 2.) reuse older and more engaging pins from time to time.

Engage with others

Working on your boards and pins is great and all, but that's only one end of the spectrum. You have to engage with others as much as you expect from others. Look for trending pins relevant to your business. Like, comment and repin them. But be considerate when commenting. Merely commenting “Awesome Pin” or “Nice :)” without any thought behind it will make you appear as attention seeking, and which may only cause more harm than good. Also, keep in mind to comment in moderation. Too many comments may flag your profile for spam and may cause a temporary suspension of your account. Stick to 1-2 comments daily.

Share and re-pin content that from other people’s boards. People clicking on those pins saved by you will be re-directed to the original poster, but this technique helps you get more people on your page, especially those people following the business whose pin you shared. This sets you up for the next step which is…

Join Group Boards

Group boards in Pinterest allow you to jump into the thick of things, as it exposes you to more people than your following. Group boards are curated boards for specific content, and the creator of the board can invite people to contribute to their board.

Posting on a group board allows you to be seen by followers of the other members as well as your own. They can also become your followers if they like your content.

Start looking for group board at PinGroupie. You can search for groups boards here based on categories, title, description and more. Find the groups that are relevant to your business, and start applying!

To join a group board, you need to convince the group board’s owner to let you in. Many group board owners carefully select group members, to maintain the board’s quality (and keep spammers out!). Prove that your content is worth their board’s space. The person on the left most side of the board main page is the owner.

The group owner is the user at the left most side.

Using these tips will improve your number of followers, who will repin and like your content. Soon you’ll be able to look at your Pinterest analytics page with a smile on your face.

Learn more about what PosterMyWall has to offer at our website. We are also on social media - give us a like on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Happy designing!